Saturday, March 14, 2015

Voting Now Open For 47th Ward Menu Money Projects

If you live or own a business in the 47th Ward, Ald. Pawar wants to hear from you about what projects you want done with the 2015 menu money that each ward receives. He says in his most recent newsletter:

"Every year, each ward is allocated $1.32 million in aldermanic menu funding for public infrastructure projects. The next step in determining how our menu dollars will be spent is for all of you to vote on which projects you would like to see completed. The first step in this process was completed last Fall when individuals and neighborhood groups submitted block audits. For this menu season we received 176 block audits from all around the 47th Ward. This is an all-time high -- up 60% from last year. I want to thank everyone who took the time to complete a block audit. To see the final report on last year's aldermanic menu program, please click here.

In addition to the data provided by the block audits, the 47th Ward Team has been sorting through service request data from the city's 311 system and other requests made to our office to determine which projects to consider this year. They also excluded projects which have already been budgeted in a previous year or that were recently completed.

Voting for the 2015 aldermanic menu begins TODAY, and you can vote on projects by clicking here. To take a look at the projects before logging on to vote, please click here. Voting will be open until 5pm on Friday, April 3rd. While you and your neighbors are considering which projects to support, the 47th Ward Team will be traveling throughout the ward to survey all of our alleys, streets, sidewalks and other public infrastructure. I will use all of this data to finalize the list of projects that will be submitted to the City for this year's menu.

Please know that our submission is not the end of the process. The Chicago Department of Transportation carefully surveys each project. They also coordinate with the Department of Water Management and other utilities to ensure that our work is not done ahead of other major capital work like a water main replacement. This process saves valuable tax dollars, but can create changes in our initial submission. As always, we will report back to you on the projects selected for 2015.

Your input is vitally important as we determine which projects to fund with our limited budget. I hope that you will take the time to vote and please urge your neighbors to do so as well. If you have any questions, please contact my office."